


Sailing to Hirugashima

by Daegaer



Series: The Road towards Kamakura [1]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Friendship, M/M, Psychic Abilities, Space Opera, space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-04
Updated: 2007-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:10:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his way to exile in a distant and unimportant post for his family's crimes, Mamoru tries to make sense of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sailing to Hirugashima

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://louiselux.livejournal.com/profile)[**louiselux**](http://louiselux.livejournal.com/) and [](http://toscas-kiss.livejournal.com/profile)[**toscas_kiss**](http://toscas-kiss.livejournal.com/) for their sterling work in beta-ing! The title was suggested by Tosca, after the island to which Minamoto no Yoritomo, the founder of the [Kamakura Shogunate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamakura_shogunate), was exiled as a young man.

  
The imperial merchant navy ship Tsubame Maru had been underway for a full week before the call came for a meeting with the captain. Mamoru frowned as he pulled on his dress uniform. It was an insult, he thought, and one that he couldn't respond to. Just as the quartering of almost all his people on another ship had been. Just as was the quartering of his shadow with him. He could see how little a complaint would avail him. _He's your guard isn't he? Don't you need to keep him close?_ Naoe _was_ his guard, but he should have his own quarters. He was an officer, damn it. Mamoru combed his hair. It would be a naive person indeed who didn't know exactly what it meant to have a guard like Naoe. He was Mamoru's jailer. Finally, assured he was as presentable as it was possible to be aboard ship, Mamoru turned round.

"What do you think? Will I do?"

Naoe nodded, just once. "Yes. Shall we go?"

The ship's corridors weren't as crowded as they should be. Mamoru walked silently along, following the green line on the wall as he'd been told. He wondered if an order had been passed down to avoid him, or if people just naturally despised him. Barely anyone had spoken to him all week. No one had spoken to Naoe.

Mamoru didn't bother smiling at the people they passed. It was hard to remember how eager he had once been to make friends, to be liked. Here, he thought, it would be taken as an admission of weakness or as Takatori arrogance - and none of his family had the right to arrogance any longer. He could feel the ship's crew watching, and turned once to see two women sneering at Naoe's black-clad form. They stopped whispering, insolently slow, and met his gaze unblinkingly. Mamoru strode on.

Captain Fjalarsson's quarters were pleasantly spacious and comfortable. Mamoru paid polite attention to the images displayed on the walls. The captain's homeworld, slender buildings soaring into the sky. The captain's first ship, a small and battered thing for which he clearly had great fondness. The captain's wives and concubines, bright-haired children settled decoratively around their feet.

"Lovely," Mamoru said, glad none of them were aboard to be offered to him as servants. Not that that would be likely; the captain would baulk at such courtesies, he was sure. It didn't matter. Mamoru wasn't sure he had any real rank to be honoured in such a way.

"Well, we should eat," Captain Fjalarsson said, gesturing towards the table. Mamoru blinked. It was set for two. He carefully did not meet Naoe's eyes, and then felt anger rise within him. _Enough is enough_ , he thought.

"Lt Naoe will be joining us, surely?" he said, the necessity for politeness sticking in his throat.

"Do you want him to?" the captain asked in astonishment. Feigned astonishment, Mamoru was sure. "I'd have thought you would have preferred him to stand guard over you."

"Lt Naoe is an imperial officer," Mamoru said. "I'd prefer him to be treated as one."

"Well," Fjalarsson said coolly, and pressed a button set into the table. "Let us accommodate the imperial Lt Naoe, by all means." A moment later a man entered and an extra setting was soon laid ready. They knelt around the table and started eating.

"I don't often have people like you at my table, Naoe," Fjalarsson said, reaching towards the dishes on the table. "Although it is not the first time I've eaten with someone of your rank, Ambassador Takatori. Or do you prefer "Captain"? You have previously held some military rank for a short time, I believe?"

"Ambassador is perfectly acceptable," Mamoru said, neatly transferring more noodles to his bowl. "That is my position, after all."

"A worthy position, for one so young," Fjalarsson said, the poison in his voice clearer now. "Though you will perhaps be homesick, stationed so far away from everything you find familiar."

"I'm happy to do my duty," Mamoru said. It was always a safe answer.

"Still -- to be ambassador to such an out of the way world. Why, even the Alliance doesn't care about it overmuch. You won't find much in the way of home comforts _or_ cross-cultural stimulation there!"

"The Alliance government made no comment on my posting," Mamoru said. _Shut up_ , he thought. _Do you think I don't_ know _I'm being exiled?_ The pain was sudden and piercing. He wished he could somehow find his family no longer disgraced, his home inviolate and safe. _Fool_ , he thought. _Your life is what it is. You should be glad you're alive to be exiled._

"What about you, Lt Naoe?" Fjalarsson said, rudely pointing his chopsticks at Naoe. "Are you happy to be sent so far?"

"I too am happy to do my duty," Naoe said.

"Huh," Fjalarsson muttered. "Such a lack of emotion. He's not human, I take it?"

Mamoru put his bowl down. To his left he saw Naoe's chopsticks laid neatly across his table setting. "Lt Naoe is a member of the imperial human race," he said icily. "He's neither cloned nor enhanced."

"Well," Fjalarssson said mildly. "A natural-born freak, then."

Mamoru clenched his fists tight. Before he could respond, Naoe leant forward, chopsticks in hand as if nothing of import had been said at all.

"That's one way of putting it," he said, replenishing his bowl. "Your provisions are excellent, Captain Fjalarsson. For a ship so far from imperial comforts."

The captain gave a short laugh. "Your dog snaps, Takatori," he said. "Eat your dinner -- the galley felt they should do their best for such distinguished passengers." He said not a word more throughout the meal.

  


* * *

  
"This insolence cannot be allowed continue!" Mamoru said, secure in his own quarters once more. "They should have given me the captain's cabin! They should have taken on all the staff accompanying me! You should have your own quarters!"

"It's a rare opportunity for them to be so unmannerly," Naoe said calmly. "We'll be there soon enough."

"It's insufferable! I had nothing to do with my family's disgrace, nothing! I'm not even a son of the main line --"

"Be glad of that," Naoe said. "How long do you think it took the others to die?"

Mamoru took deep breaths till he was calm again. He was alive, saved by his illegitimacy, saved by never having been acknowledged until after the crimes that had seen other men of his family killed. To be publicly acknowledged as a Takatori and given this posting that no Takatori would so much have looked at was his lifeline and his punishment. _Look at what is left of those who thought themselves powerful enough to challenge the rule of law_ , his posting said. _Don't be like them._ He was raised up and cast down with the same ruling, sent far from the imperial centres of power, far from people like him with only a Psi-Corps assassin for company.

"Nagi --" he said miserably.

"Shh," Naoe said, flicking his eyes towards the cameras.

Mamoru nodded. It was dangerous to use Naoe's given name, it was dangerous even to think it. It would not do for anyone to think the creature set to guard him -- to make sure his life was as long and demeaning as possible and to keep him loyal throughout its course -- was in any way his friend. Better by far for the worlds to see him as something between bodyguard and jailer.

"Give me a hand with the boots, would you?" he said, sitting down.

Naoe pulled them off, his hand lingering a moment on Mamoru's ankle. He looked up, unsmiling, and Mamoru felt a touch against his cheek, something like the palm of a hand, cupping there.

"We'll be there soon enough. Endure everything until then," Naoe said, and rose, and put the boots away.

* * *

  
"I'm going to the officer's mess," Mamoru said after another four days. "I can't sit in here for the whole voyage."

"There's work you could do," Naoe said.

Mamoru grimaced, and turned away to stare at the blank walls. "I've done all I can," he said. "There wasn't that much that needed to be handled by me. I just hope the staff will be working during _their_ journey." He looked sidelong at Naoe, and away again. _I hope they aren't all my enemies_ , he thought. _I hope I can work with them and not disgrace the family further._ It wasn't a thought he wanted to share with anyone.

Naoe looked disapproving, but followed him anyway. The off-duty officers in the mess looked their way, and as one, found themselves deep and engaging conversations. Mamoru didn't let the ostracism drive him away, sitting at a table and setting up a Go board. Naoe slipped into the chair opposite.

"We could have played this in your quarters," he muttered.

"I was going crazy in my quarters," Mamoru said as quietly. "Are you good at Go?"

"No, I'm hopeless," Naoe scowled.

"Me too," Mamoru said with as close to a real smile as he could muster. He spent the next forty minutes getting bogged down and confused, his only consolation that Naoe was equally as frustrated and bored.

"You've played to a stalemate, unless one of you can suddenly improve in the next few moments," a voice said.

Mamoru looked up. The young man standing over him was the only other imperial human in the room.

"Lieutenant," he said politely, looking at the insignia on the uniform, and wondering why the man had chosen a career on a merchant navy ship.

"Utsumi," the man supplied.

"Perhaps you'd like to play one of us? I'm afraid neither of us is really any good."

"No," Utsumi said. "Thank you, but no. Please don't take this the wrong way, but you should return to your cabin."

"Why?" Naoe asked. "Is the ship going to undertake manoeuvres?"

Mamoru looked at him in surprise at the blank hostility in his tone.

"Your presence makes my fellow officers uneasy," Utsumi said. "They would prefer not to be put in the position of socialising with someone whose family are such notorious --"

"Ambassador Takatori has the right to go wherever he wants," Naoe snapped.

"Which is why he has you following him," Utsumi said sourly. "That this ship should have to transport a creature such as yourself --"

"You must like being aboard this ship," Naoe said quietly, his voice full of menace. "Convincing yourself that your shipmates see you as just another one of the crew. Convincing yourself they don't resent your promotions that always come before theirs. Convincing yourself you _like_ them."

"Keep him out of sight," Utsumi said, his mouth thin with disapproval. "Everyone knows Psi-Corps are trouble, and that they'll make trouble for decent, normal people."

"Lt Naoe --" Mamoru started.

"Lt Naoe is an abomination trained in ferreting out treason and in manufacturing evidence of it if he can't meet his quota," Utsumi said. "You should be wary of him, _Ambassador_. No doubt he'll find the evidence needed to allow you to join your father and brothers shortly after you take up your posting." He stepped back. "If you'll excuse me, I must get back to my friends."

Mamoru watched him go and then just turned a silent gaze on Naoe.

"What?" Naoe said. "The moment he opened his mouth I could tell what he was going to say." He swept the pieces off the board. "It doesn't take precognition, you know. It just takes observing someone who has to feel isolated and thought he had to make his position known. If he wants to wave his weaknesses in front of me, I can't be held responsible. Let's go back to the cabin." He stood up and Mamoru had no choice but to accompany him. He felt the officers' regard as if it were a physical weight such as Naoe could conjure out of nothingness.

"We're going to be as isolated, stuck in an Alliance outpost," Mamoru said once they were alone. Homesickness threatened to overwhelm him.

"No. There are imperials as well as subjects of the Empire on your staff. You won't feel as alone. Their files all indicate they're easy to work with," Naoe said.

"There'll be no one else like you," Mamoru said quietly.

Naoe just looked at him. "I'm used to it, I'm always alone," he said at last. "Though that's not true any longer." He looked towards the cameras and back, apparently satisfied. "Mamoru," he said, very quietly. "Wait. Just wait. We'll be forgotten, and we can live as we wish. All right?"

"All right," Mamoru sighed. "I wish we could say something openly --"

Naoe laughed, a silent, barely-there flicker over his face. "Even a disgraced member of a family like yours can't admit to a fondness for an _abomination_ like me. As for me, I'm just a servant of the state. Let's not make the state remember me." The touch came upon Mamoru's face again, and he leant his cheek into it, as if Naoe's -- as if _Nagi's_ hand really touched him.

"Stay as invisible as possible," he pleaded. "Don't kill anyone on this ship."

"Not unless I have to."

  


* * *

  
There were four days left of travel. Mamoru had never been so far from home. He snorted at the thought. Before his family's destruction he had never so much as been off-world. He had never thought of learning a foreign language, nor of a job in the imperial administration. He had a chance, he realised. He could build up the family anew, out here on the edges of the empire. They'd never be as powerful again, but they could have a good and honourable existence, serving the state as his father had not. They might come to speak with Alliance accents, he thought with a start. They might even prefer to use one of the myriad of languages the Alliance confusingly favoured. None of that mattered, he thought. The Alliance would have no idea what his family obligations were, they would have no idea what Naoe was. He'd find some way of officially bringing Naoe -- Nagi -- into the family, and find some decent and impoverished imperial family that would think giving daughters to a Takatori might still have some use. In a few generations, they might even be allowed go home.

"You're more cheerful," Naoe said.

"I'm making the best of things," Mamoru smiled, neatening himself up. People said the Psi-Corps didn't breed true. Well, they'd find that out, assuming he could get those respectable daughters.

"Do you really need to see Fjalarsson again? The man just wants to lord it over you."

"Perhaps he's afraid you might get a message home about his attitude," Mamoru said with a grin. "Disgraced I may be, but I still outrank him."

"Huh. A _civilian_ rank," Naoe said dismissively, though his voice held humour. " _Well_ , as Captain Fjalarsson would say, let's go to dinner."

The corridors were more crowded. Perhaps, Mamoru thought, someone had forgotten to alert the crew of a pariah coming through. The blank looks and mutters could not detract from his sudden good humour at the thought of living an unsupervised life. It was not until the deafening noise and then someone screaming that he knew anything was wrong. He looked at the bullets hanging in mid-air in front of him, and the fair-haired woman spread-eagled high against the wall, her neck awkwardly bent and her head pressed against the ceiling. She was screaming, as if she were being torn apart. The crewmembers in the corridor yelled and shoved, adding to the confusion.

Naoe strode forward, his face dark with fury. Without looking he held out his hand and the bullets fell neatly into his palm. His eyes did not leave the writhing woman. She screamed louder as one of her arms twisted impossibly, the snap of breaking bone audible even above the din of the crew.

"Stop!" Utsumi yelled, breasting through the crowd. He stopped dead, as if he could come no nearer. "Stop, you monster!"

"Nagi!" Mamoru said urgently, " _Nagi!_ " There was clear space around him, people pushed back by the force of Naoe's anger.

"She tried to kill Ambassador Takatori," Naoe said calmly. He tossed the bullets to Utsumi, letting them spin and spiral before his face. "Attacking an Imperial representative is treason."

"We have the rule of law on this ship!" Utsumi yelled as the woman's legs broke with a sound like percussion. "She should be tried! You can't just torture her to death, you piece of filth!"

Mamoru felt the air go dead and still around him. Naoe looked Utsumi in the face. "Who are you to think you can tell me what to do?" he said. "No one on this ship has the authority to give me orders. She's a traitor, she belongs to Psi-Corp personnel. If I want to kill her over the next week it's not your business."

"Nagi!" Mamoru said again. "Lieutenant Naoe!"

Naoe cast a quick look at him, then stepped back beside him. "Nothing can get near you," he muttered. He gestured and the woman's dropped gun came to his hand. "You're safe." He glanced back at the woman and she fell, her head hitting the floor hard, her limbs splayed awkwardly as if all the nerves and tendons had been cut. "Have her, Utsumi," he said in a bored voice. "I'm sure there are some interesting funeral customs you can participate in."

Utsumi bent over her and then rose angrily. "I'm going to the captain. I'll have you tried for murder."

"Don't be stupid," Naoe said. "You know that's not possible. Save your outrage for the way the Ambassador and I have been treated aboard this vessel. We have been insulted and treated as if we are nothing. The Ambassador has been attacked. Go to the captain. Tell him he is expected in the Ambassador's quarters to make a full apology." He glared round at the now silent crew. "Bow your heads!" he yelled. "How dare you stand upright when a member of the imperial race has been attacked by one of you?"

One by one the crew bowed, their faces stony. Utsumi did not. "I'm not bowing to you," he said.

"Bow," Naoe said. "Acknowledge you should respect the Ambassador's rank. Or don't bow, and have your _friends_ see only three imperials standing upright. Fit in with them, or fit in with us."

Utsumi stepped back, then turned and strode away. Naoe put his hand on Mamoru's arm. "Come on," he said. "We're going back."

Mamoru said nothing till they were safely back in his quarters. Naoe pushed him into the corner where the cameras' view could only partially reach and stood in front of him, shielding him from watchers. "Let me make sure you're all right," he said loudly, running his hands over Mamoru. "I know you are," he whispered. "I just want --" He smiled briefly, trailing a finger over Mamoru's jaw.

"Why?" Mamoru said numbly. "Why did she try to shoot me?"

"Your family made a lot of enemies," Naoe said.

"A gun, Nagi? A _gun_? She could have caused as much damage to the ship as to me -- she must have known it." He looked at Naoe in horror. He could do more than manipulate objects and air currents. "Did you influence her into shooting me? Did you orchestrate that to demonstrate your authority?" Naoe laid a hand over his heart.

"Do you want me to say no, or yes?" he said. "Your family has enemies, you've been treated in such a way as to make a killer think you're isolated and an easy target. I didn't need to orchestrate anything. I just cleaned up."

He'd have to accept it, Mamoru thought. Whatever happened, he and Naoe would be together for years and he couldn't afford ill feeling. He didn't _want_ ill-feeling between them. He pushed Utsumi's accusation of Psi-Corps' manufacture of evidence away. "By suggesting it was a racial incident," he said stiffly, embarrassed.

"Would you rather it was considered an attempt on your life because of your family, bringing that issue further back into the spotlight when we have a chance to sink into obscurity? An attack by a crazed subject of the empire who just didn't like imperials is better," Naoe said. "Fjalarsson will be keen not to have _that_ interpretation bruited about. He won't make trouble for us." He stepped back, professional once more. "You should get ready to meet him. You should consider making him touch his head to the floor."

"That kind of attitude to the subjects of the empire is discouraged," Mamoru said. "They don't like that sort of arrogance."

"Then their ancestors should have fought harder," Naoe said, off-hand. "Your family may be disgraced, but you are an Imperial Ambassador. How will you deal with Alliance citizens if you're not used to acting with authority even over subjects of the empire? He'll apologise," he whispered, "and he'll go. We'll be left to live our lives."

Mamoru closed his eyes for a second. _Learn to wield authority_ , he thought. _Act as if you and your family are still worth something, and it will true some day again._ He wouldn't get those daughters of respectable families by being shy, he thought, and sat in the chair Naoe pulled out for him, schooling his face to calm and dignified silence.

The door opened and Captain Fjalarsson stood there, worry and anger on his face. Sitting on the chair as if sitting in state, Naoe a silent and dark presence behind him, Ambassador Takatori pointed to the floor before his feet. The captain knelt.

Mamoru felt himself relax, in control of something at last.


End file.
